In Algeria, the prosecution of the specialized criminal center of Constantine, in the east of the country, placed four people in provisional detention on Tuesday evening and a fifth under judicial control as part of the investigation, opened on February 8, into the activist Amira Bouraoui’s “illegal” exit from Algeria.
According to the Algerian justice, the investigation showed that Amira Bouraoui left the territory “illegally and in a planned manner” with the help of a “criminal network of illegal immigration”. This network is made up, still according to the prosecution, of the taxi driver who took him to the Tunisian border, and of the border post employee who stamped his passport thus authorizing him to leave the territory.
Two other people are also charged with complicity. Journalist Mustapha Bendjama was arrested on February 8 and has since been imprisoned. A researcher close to Ms. Bouraoui, Raouf Farrah, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (Giatoc), was arrested on February 14.
These four people were brought before the prosecution and are therefore prosecuted for forming a criminal association, illegal exit from the national territory, and organization of illegal immigration specifies the prosecution. As for the mother of Amira Bouraoui, 71, she was placed under judicial control.
The authorities had forbidden Ms. Bouraoui to leave the territory. But on February 6, she went to Tunisia to join France. This journey of the activist is at the heart of a new diplomatic incident between Algiers and Paris and which led Algiers to recall its ambassador for consultation.